She sat at her home computer and moved the "mouse" around to draw a big heart. She was using a graphics software package to make valentines for her kindergartners. She is an elementary school teacher with more than one degree and even more graduate credits. Typical of many modern teachers, she is bringing years of training and advanced technology together to help children begin their school experience in the best possible way.
The question remains, however, as the child advances in school, Are we providing suitable education for the twenty-first century? Are we educating the coming generation to act intelligently on issues of peace, poverty, environment, care for the world's children, freedom, the fostering of spiritual and moral values? These were cited in an editorial in The Christian Science Monitor entitled "Looking to the 21st century—a Monitor agenda for action." Monitor, January 5, 1987 .
"The need for fundamental restructuring of educational systems" and "The breakdown in public and private morality" are two of six issues that Rushworth M. Kidder singles out in his book An Agenda for the 21st Century as priority items that we need to address. He calls them "first-intensity items ... to which humanity must devote its full attention and its unstinting resources." An Agenda for the 21st Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1987), p. 195 .
